his other fascinations, it may be said without scandal that they were courted wherever he went. He was married twice; his first marriage secured to him an ample competency. La Colbran, then reigning as Sultana of the Theatre San Carlo at Naples, had amassed money there. She was a magnificently handsome woman, and is described as having been in her best days a grand and accomplished singer. For her the best and most ambitious of Rossini's Italian operas were written. The money in her purse, and the gains reaped in England during a visit made in the luxurious times of George IV., who distinguished the artist with the most marked courtesies and favours, laid the foundation of a fortune subsequently largely augmented, during Rossini's residence in Paris, by his labours for the Grand Opéra. On the death of Madame Colbran Rossini, the composer married again. Of this marriage, the lady being still living, it would not be decorous to speak; save by calling attention to the confidence and affection confirmed by the composer's testamentary disposition of his fortune. This, on his widow's decease, will, with some exception, ultimately revert to Rossini's native town Pesaro, for the foundation of a music school. It is characteristic that the clause of the will in which the bequest is prescribed, enjoins that the holders of certain endowed scholarships shall be selected and rewarded in proportion as they display instincts for melody.

Trait upon trait could be laid together, anecdote after anecdote told, letter after letter cited, and still the portrait of one of the most representative men of his country and of our time would be left incomplete. One or two marking facts, however, may be put on record. While Rossini was exquisitely alive to the enjoyment of every luxury purchaseable by money, he was anything but greedy of gain. Higher sums have been realised in this country by a single waltz tune, nay, by one of those miserable amateur English ballads, which English artists of worth have dishonoured themselves by singing for hire, than by any one of the operas produced by Rossini before he arrived in Paris. And yet the list of these includes Tancredi,' Il Barbiere,' La Cenerentola,' La Donna del Lago,' Zelmira' (to our thinking, his Italian masterpiece), La 'Gazza Ladra,' Mosè,' Otello,' and Semiramide.' His physical indolence was as great as his mental activity. His Barbiere was written by him during a few days passed by him in bed-under pressure and in presence of the artists who were to appear in the opera. Some of his original music is irretrievably lost, including an overture in the Spanish style. This was replaced by the present prelude, which had

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already done duty in one or two previous operas. Rossini was a keen lover of the pleasures of the table; he cherished the superstitions of the Italian folk, and feared the Evil Eye. He feared railways still more; and when he removed himself for the last time from Italy to Paris, he insisted on being dragged through the long journey in a carriage as safer than and therefore preferable to the new-fangled mode of conveyance. was at once cultivated and ignorant-petty and noble, sensual yet simple-a man of wonderful acuteness, yet free from disguise; in brief, as brilliant an example of contradictions existing in the same human being as the world has ever seen. Not content with being conversant with the past music of all styles and countries, he was to the last willing, nay eager, to make acquaintance with all that was passing in the world from which he had retired, and he expressed his sympathy or antipathy with a direct clearness there was no misunderstanding. Certain of his opinions recorded were curious examples of prejudice. He was used to speak contemptuously of Bach, as a tiresome fugue writer, little foreseeing, it may be, the painful efforts in that form of composition which he was about to introduce in his last Mass; but he enjoyed and revered Handel. His enthusiasm for Mozart knew no bounds; he appreciated Beethoven and Weber and Mendelssohn as they deserved.

In his intercourse with other musicians, in the assistance of his contemporaries and successors by counsel, sympathy, and time, not seldom wasted on the ungrateful and unworthy, Rossini was shrewd, generous, cordial, and patient. When he was actively engaged in the management of the Italian Opera at Paris, he was resolute in bringing forward Meyerbeer as a stage composer; and, though that astute and unscrupulous Prussian virtually displaced him at the Grand Opéra of Paris, the two men, if not precisely sincere friends, remained on cordial terms so long as their lives lasted. It may be added that Meyerbeer did not repay Rossini's kindness after the fashion recommended by Benjamin Franklin-namely, by giving corresponding encouragement, in his turn, to younger artists. Rossini was prescient, acute, and kindly in doing justice to the brilliant genius of M. Auber. He loved Bellini-the composer who may be said, by the operas Sonnambula' and Norma,' to have thrust him from the Italian stage-as though the young Sicilian had been his son. Not long before his death he received a letter from one of the hundred new Italian composers whose presumption keeps pace with their impotence, requesting him to accept the dedication of a new Barbiere, and hoping that no offence would be taken at the attempt.

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To Signor dell' Argine's modest petition the master wrote an answer paternal in its indulgence, fraternal in its courtesy ;acceding to the request, and recalling how, in his own youth, he had ventured to treat the same subject, though that might have been thought occupied and closed by Paisiello's popular opera. It was admirable to see with what an electric readiness Rossini, when an old man, yet not indifferent to the concerns of others, could point out the strong and the weak points in any manuscripts submitted to him; with what justice he could suggest the remedy needed, no matter what the style or the subject of the work. Never was praise more exquisite in its discrimination, never was blame less mortifying in its sincerity, than his.

'For years,' writes a great singer and musician, who has long disappeared from the scene of her successes, I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of his friendship-steadily shown to me as an artiste-in advice and help. But in this, Rossini was equally generous to all musicians of every nation; and he made so light of these favours that many seemed to forget that they were such. Never was there a man more simple and unaffected in his manners. He was at once quiet and cheerful; as delightful to the young and inexperienced, as to men and women of the world having talents different from his own. His wit and satire, though keen, were so polished as seldom if ever to offend, unless it were the over-pretentious. He had a sweet and equal temper even under provocation, and a gratitude amounting almost to religion, for any favour, great or small, by which he conceived himself to have benefited.'

Of course, acting as Rossini did, from impulse rather than principle, and revelling in the consciousness of humours which might kindle antipathies, this great genius was sometimes unjust in his judgments-too often insincere in his commendations. As an instance of his injustice, he was wont to speak disparagingly of the greatest female dramatic singer of our timePasta-dwelling ungenerously on the natural defects which not even her indomitable genius could wholly subdue, and forgetting the splendour of interpretation which she had thrown into his works. There has been no Tancredi or Semiramide like herself. This prejudice was made all the more unpardonable by the indiscriminate bounty of his toleration. Clamorously beset as he was by all manner of musical empirics and pretenders, and, whether from good nature or from indolence, unwilling to refuse access to anyone, Rossini gave out written praise with a facility unworthy of a real artist and an honest man. He was wont to say in explanation, that none of those whom he addressed-already acquainted with his cypher-could fail to distinguish between such words of course as warrant nothing, and

such credentials as indicate real value. But his insincerity bore hard on the poor, self-deceived, pretending creatures, whose belief in the recommendation was as implicit as their after disappointment must necessarily be cruel. A collection of his testimonials would be a curious contribution to the literature of Art-one far more humiliating to the giver than to his recipients. It is sad but true that in no social transactions of daily recurrence are duty and responsibility so unscrupulously overlooked-by men, too, who would recoil with abhorrence from every thought of double-dealing-as in the writing of such false letters of credit.

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Thus much of the man. Of the musician and his works it is not easy to speak, owing to what may be called the confusion which marked his artistic life, especially at the time when he was throwing out inspiration after inspiration without effort to meet the wants of the hour. It would be difficult, probably impossible, to draw out a correct and chronological catalogue of Rossini's Italian operas; and the task, if completed, would destroy those theories of ripening and development which critics of a certain order love to build up and lay hold upon. An instance or two may be given in addition to those already cited. It is known that an early Oratorio, Ciro in Babilonia,' furnished a chorus to 'Aureliano in Palmyra,' which afterwards took the form of Almaviva's opening air in Il Barbiere.' One of the same forgotten works contained the germ of that stupendous finale to Moise-the French Mosè,' which, as an example of climax, rising by degrees till a final delirium of excitement is arrived at, stands alone and supreme among a thousand similar pieces of musical effect and passion. Several of Rossini's operas must have died and made no sign, and, in any event, have been inexcusably overlooked by his biographer. Among these was Bianca e Faliero,' which, nevertheless, contains a duet in his most stately and florid style, and a quartett with chorus, Ciel 'il mio labbro,' only outdone in vigour and progressive brilliancy by the finale from Moise,' just referred to. Of Rossini's cantatas, most of them produced on the spur of the moment for some temporary purpose, and the best thoughts of which may have been used later in more substantial works, no complete list exists.

His manner of working has been censured as dishonest and careless, savouring of indolence and contempt of his public. That he appropriated from the works of other composers whatever form or phrase struck his fancy is not to be denied. As has been said, he had no scruple in improving one or two marked rhythmical

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phrases, first indicated in the overtures of that arch-intriguer Päer. Mosca, a second-rate composer, now entirely forgotten save by the title of one of his operas, I due Pretendenti delusi,' used to lay claim to the invention of the crescendo, subsequently used to excess in Rossini's operas. But most men prodigal in musical productiveness and rich in their own genius have been thus unscrupulous. Handel's habits of wholesale unblushing appropriation are well known. Mozart, the affluence of whose invention and science is almost unparalleled, could borrow from Gluck's ballet of Don Juan' the supernatural music in the cemetery scene of Don Giovanni.' Weber has been accused of pillaging a forgotten composer Böhner, who perished in misery and madness brought on by disorderly conduct. The reminiscences, probably unconscious ones, which Mendelssohn's works contain could be numbered by scores. Meyerbeer reproduced Paddy Carey,' an Irish national air, in the orgie which closes Le Prophète.' Haydn and Beethoven are probably the only two composers that could be named who owed little or no inspiration to anyone save themselves. It is only the narrow-minded, who find it easier to note coincidences of fancy than to comprehend and set forth individualities of style, that can dwell on these admitted truths in a grudging spirit. Let them be made the most of, and the drawback on the glory of the masters of art is too small to be worth counting. There is enough originality in the introductions to Rossini's overtures-such as those to L'Italiana,'' Il 'Barbiere,''La Gazza,' Tancredi,'Le Siége de Corinthe,' 'Guillaume Tell,' to compensate for all the plagiarisms and appropriations which the bilious and pedantic have magnified into monstrous sins against good faith and true art.

It is to be observed, however, that so soon as a position of settled importance and dignity was insured to Rossini, rescuing him from all the shifts and necessities of a precarious life-so soon as he received his appointment at the Grand Opéra of Paris-he began to finish his compositions with scrupulous selfrespect. This his operas Le Siége de Corinthe,' a reconsideration of 'Maometto Secondo,' Le Comte Ory,' in which the occasional piece written for the coronation of Charles X., and represented by such a galaxy of artists as could not now be gathered were the world of singers ransacked, was adapted and perfected for the stage, his Moise,' and, most of all, his ‹ Guillaume Tell,' attest. None of these new scores are chargeable with borrowed matter. But their maker confided in his special musical genius too arrogantly: he heeded too little what he setnay, it has been said, he absolutely turned away from subjects